


if nothing helps you see, far be it from me to point it out

by oh_simone



Category: Inception
Genre: Arthur fixes everything, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Arthur's job to be there for Cobb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if nothing helps you see, far be it from me to point it out

He is standing in front of a door. It’s a good door: solid, thick, wood-stained, with a faceted glass fanlight and a brassy golden door handle, round and smooth and warm. He touches it, puts barely any pressure on it as the door swings open. The hallway is dark and unlit, but there’s warm golden light striping out from the kitchen entrance. He walks in after closing the door gently behind him, turns at the end of the hall, and there is Dom, sitting at the kitchen table in a rumpled suit that had begun the night in top notch condition; he knows this because tonight was Dom and Mal’s anniversary. But instead of being at the hotel, Dom is here, sitting at his kitchen table, looking two steps away from utter collapse. His expression is crumpled and gray, and it doesn’t look like he’s moved at all in the past couple of hours, much less intends to. When he looks up at the sound of footsteps, his expression is blind and unfocused. His gaze sharpens on the man in the doorway and for a moment, he looks utterly confused before recognition kicks in.

“Arthur,” Cobb croaks, and Arthur steps into the kitchen.

“Dom,” he says, and raises a hand, grips Cobb’s shoulder. Can’t think of anything to say, but “I’m here.”

 

Arthur puts Cobb to bed, makes sure Philippa and James are still asleep, and calls Cobb’s lawyer. He leaves before dawn to meet with the man, and they finalize arrangements and getaway plans together in the space of four hours, calling in every favor they could and more. Then, Arthur goes to LAX and buys himself a ticket to Buenos Aires. He checks in, boards the plane, and minutes before the airplane closes its doors, looks up to where Cobb has appeared besides him. The older man’s eyes are tracking, and he doesn’t seem in shock anymore, but there’s still so much grief in his eyes that Arthur feels his knees weaken in sympathetic response. Wordlessly, he gets up, allows Cobb to take the inner seat and then flags the stewardess over for water and Advil.

From Argentina, they travel north to the coast of Peru. They hole up in a luxury apartment in Miraflores owned by someone who owes Arthur a significant favor, overlooking the Pacific coast that at any other time would have been impressive in its beauty, but Cobb spends the next two weeks unable to function. Arthur patiently drags him into the shower, forces him to eat, and carefully redirects unwanted attention while sending feelers out for job opportunities. On the fifth day, Cobb finds out what he’s doing and smashes the bottle of rum against the wall.

“No more,” he shouts. “No more,” his face twists into an ugly mask of sorrow and self-loathing, “ _dreaming_.” With a sudden furious lashing, he hurls the tumbler in his hand at the same wall and collapses on the bed, head bowed over his knees.

“Dom,” Arthur says carefully, lowly; he’s soothing a wild animal here, hurting and unpredictable. He stays close to the door. “We need the money. Let me work a couple jobs; you can sit out if you want, but you need to come with me, do you understand?”

“Go away,” Cobb replies dully. Arthur complies; he doesn’t mind. He’ll be back.

 

For awhile, Arthur keeps to South America—Peru’s as good a place to get lost as any, but eventually, his contacts have an offer that draws him out to Berlin. By then, Cobb has sunk into the grim survivor mode, and moves just enough to get through the day. In the rented flat in West Berlin, he listens to Arthur explain the client while cleaning his gun and wiping the black metal meticulously with an oiled cloth. Outside, it is a quiet afternoon; kids are playing at the end of the cul-de-sac on Pariser Strasse, and there are backpackers smoking outside the doors of a nearby hostel.

“Dom,” Arthur calls patiently as he slots the cartridge back in with a heavy slide and click. “Are you listening?”

Dom’s eyes linger outside; Arthur knows he’s watching the little blond children tripping around a soccer ball. “I get it, Arthur,” he says a little testily and turns away, smoothing his shirt and adjusting his tie. “Let’s go.”

 

Cobb is in a bar in East Berlin.

Arthur barely pauses as he pushes through the heavy doors and heads unerringly to Cobb’s hunched figure over the bar. This is no tourist trap; nothing remotely Alpine or ultra-modern, but serviceable, with light wooded walls and old scratched floors, booths and crooked tables in the back, a Bible verse in German cross-stitched in a frame, an aging couple watching with a haughty mixture of curiosity and faint hostility from the corner. Behind the counter, a tall, heavy-set man looking suspiciously like Santa Claus in tie-dye raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say a word.

Quietly, Arthur slides in next to Cobb and shakes his shoulder gently. “Dom,” he says lowly, then louder, “Dom.”

He gets a glimpse of bleary blue eyes before Dom turns his head away. “I can’t do this,” he swallows, and his hands flex white around the glass of amber before him. Arthur looks at the bartender, and solemnly, the big man flashes his thumb and pointer; two drinks. It could be worse.

“I can do it,” Arthur tells Cobb quietly. “If you don’t want to, I’ll go on in alone, or I’ll bring Eames in,” he tells him, spouting out the first name that comes to mind.

“Eames,” Cobb repeats slowly. “The… oh, him.” For a moment, amusement flickers over his face. Then, the sick sourness reasserts itself and he takes a long drink. “No, I… he won’t work for this situation.” He seems to gather himself inwards, wayward strand by wayward strand, into an imitation of professionalism. It’s not totally convincing, but Arthur appreciates the effort. “You might consider Nash.”

“The architect?” Arthur frowns. “Why do we need him?” But Arthur is no fool and he cuts a look to Dom. “What’s wrong?”

For a long moment, Dom refuses to say anything, and finally, Arthur sighs, throws down a couple folded euros and firmly grips his partner by the shoulders to steer him out onto the dark, empty streets. Cobb is not a total dead weight; he’s not had enough to lose himself, but his steps are slightly precarious, so Arthur keeps a hand on his arm, another just touching his back, between the shoulder blades.

At the edge of their block, between one old turreted church and a cowboy-themed restaurant, Dom looks at him darkly.

“I can do it,” he manages, though Arthur can tell it’s with extreme reluctance. “But if anything goes wrong, you call Nash for any more jobs, understand?”

Arthur thinks it’s interesting how positive Cobb sounds about getting it wrong, but he’s too relieved to worry about what it means.

 

_  
The Berlin Job goes wrong, spectacularly, when Mal makes her way up to Arthur with a sly smile and sinks a jeweled letter opener into his gut before he can even process her presence. Arthur stares at her, unblinking as he folds to the rich gold carpet, as much in shock as pain. His mind is completely blank._

_“Arthur.” Mal says his name like a secret she knows, eyes alight with amusement and derision. She tips his chin up with one finger. “You get in my way.”_

__

Arthur calls Nash before Cobb even finishes the extraction.

 

Word makes its way through the business fast, and Arthur has always been in the habit of knowing what others think. People say Arthur and Cobb work together seamlessly. They are almost always in complete accordance, and while they function admirably solo, they are unmatchable together. There’s never a need Arthur can’t anticipate, a mark Cobb can’t crack. They gain a reputation for pulling impossible jobs, for unflagging professionalism, their inability to work consistently with others. One person who worked with them twice notes thoughtfully that oh, they were perfectly courteous and as good as the rumors imply, but one can’t help but feel utterly excluded from their private superiority club of two. Politely, of course. Arthur makes sure of that.

 

_  
She doesn’t show up often unless they’re in under for an extended amount of time, and when she does, she insinuates and lies and cajoles and rants, then always always kills the point man. Arthur is starting to think that Dom doesn’t want her to go. He has no idea what that means for him._

__

 

__  
“Apple juice,” Arthur says, and hands Cobb a glass. The extractor startles, then laughs shortly and takes the cold glass.

“I was just thinking about it,” he tells him, amused, and taking the pause from work to stretch the kinks in his shoulders. “I didn’t even know we had juice in the fridge.”

Shrugging, the point man pops open the first couple buttons on his shirt and sinks into his chair with his own glass. “We didn’t. I picked this up on the way back on a whim.” He takes a sip and quirks a smile at Cobb. “Makes me feel like a kindergartener all over again.”

Cobb huffs a sound of amusement and hides his expression in the glass.

 

There’s really nothing much they have in common; Cobb is passion and imagination and charisma in spades; when he’s in the heat of the game, he’s the consummate artist, believing his own words nearly as much as the marks do. Arthur concerns himself with detail and finesse, enabling the immaculate execution of whatever task needs be done. Without his pragmatic, painstaking work, Cobb cannot convince, and without Cobb’s demanding style and drive, Arthur would feel useless.

 

_  
“If you weren’t here,” Mal sings as she pushes him off the marble balcony, “How happy I should be!”_

__

The corners of Cobb’s eyes are pinched and weary. He’s rumpled, stained, and sunburnt along the edges of his cheeks (Arthur feels- _he feels-_ )

Cobb looks at him with those exhausted blue eyes. “I think we should take a break.”

 

It feels like a blur, the days he passes back in Los Angeles; the city feels flat and vague, the taste of it all wrong. Arthur works a little to distract himself. He drives down to visit Philippa and James who greet him with mud-stained shoes and hands full of worms. Sometimes, he goes to a bar for drinks, for companionship, but most of the time, Arthur stays inside and sleeps.

 

In Rome, Arthur and Cobb run into Eames at the Campidoglio one sunny afternoon.

“ _Buon pomeriggio, ragazzi_ ,” the English man calls out as he saunters out from the shadow of the small Bar Campidoglio.

“Eames,” Cobb replies easily. Arthur inclines his head coolly, and Eames bares his teeth at him: message received, mutual dislike. “Business or pleasure?”

The broad-shouldered man makes a wide, expansive gesture, nearly smacking a passing tourist in the nose. “This is _Italia_ , they don’t do one without the other. I am, however, inclined to the latter.” His smile is very white, and, Arthur thinks disdainfully, completely dishonest.

“There are ways to beg for a job that don’t involve lying,” he informs him, and Eames gives him a sardonic look.

“How quaint you are, with such old-fashioned notions,” Eames drawls disparagingly. “It’s a good thing I’m talking to Cobb then and not you, isn’t it?”

“Arthur isn’t wrong,” Cobb interjects, sounding amused. “I was planning on bringing you in anyways. Stalking is generally discouraged.”

Eames just presses a hand to his heart and gives a brief, mocking bow.

 

They work with him three times in a row, before Eames has to fly back to London. Surprisingly, he leaves still on speaking terms with Arthur. No one questions this minor miracle, though Cobb occasionally looks unnecessarily awed.

 

_  
Mal only gets stronger with each trip into the dreamscape- Arthur finds this out when she is able to change the dream, just a little bit, loosening the wooden step under his feet enough to send him crashing down from the top and breaking his neck._

__

Fischer is militarized; Arthur is as shocked as any of them, and the anger at himself that wells up within is as harsh as Cobb’s furious castigation.

 

He is busy in the hallways, fighting off one man after another, when Mal is the one standing beside him, incongruous in a beautiful red dress.

“Any other time, Mal,” he utters without thinking, leaping back from her warily. “Jesus, how did you even get here? Cobb is another level down.”

“I am talking to who I want,” she replies serenely, and then she moves forward so fast Arthur has barely enough time to react before Mal is crowding against him, her hair brushing his face, nose to nose. “You are all wrong,” she tells him sweetly. “You are hurting him, more than you could ever understand.”

“I’m not going to let him kill himself, Mal,” Arthur growls. “You’re out of your mind.”

“I am, am I?” Mal laughs; her breath is warm against his chin. “And yet, I’m not the maddest of all.” Her head tilts to the side, and huge blue eyes regard him shrewdly, and Arthur feels, strangely, like she sees him for what he is. “Have you ever felt like perhaps you are the dream? Perhaps we are all the dream, and the dreamer is lost at sea. Will we ever wake up?”

“Mal,” Arthur says, but gunshots rip through the air and Arthur fires off a shot of his own, almost instinctively.

“ _Plus on est de fous, plus on rit_ ," she whispers in his ear. But when he turns back around, Mal is gone.

 

Cobb seems to have exorcised his demons by the time the Fischer job is over. He goes home to his children, all inner peace and joy, while Arthur goes back to his flat Los Angeles apartment. He feels… done. Dull. There is a book on his table, so he tries to read it, but the words keep blurring and fading, changing every time he tries to put sense to them. Finally, he leaves the book on the table and falls into bed. He is dreamless until he wakes, when he dresses nicely because he can, cleans his weapons out of habit, and drives down to see Cobb.

James and Philippa recognize him right away, and James flings himself at his knees, so Arthur scoops him and gives him a smile stretched around the edges. The boy grins and pats Arthur’s face cheerfully as they walk up the hall and stop at the kitchen entrance.

“Did you visit a lot?” Cobb asks, watching with a tiny smile from where he’s leaning against the counter, dishrag in hand, and Arthur blinks, because at the beginning of—when they—no.

No.

“Oh,” he says out loud, then lamely, “Some.”

And Cobb must see the funny expression on his face, because he asks Philippa and James to go play quietly. Arthur lets the boy down, and hears him scamper out to the living room with his sister. Funny, because a kid like that would usually put up a fuss.

“Arthur?” Cobb looks concerned. “Sit down. Can I get you anything?”

Arthur shakes his head. “Yes.”

Cobb looks confused.

Arthur blinks, and tries to understand what he’s just realized.

“Listen,” Cobb begins. “Look, Arthur, before you say anything else, I just wanted to thank you. So much.” He lifts his hands in a helpless gesture, and drops them again, smiling a little crookedly at Arthur. “I don’t know how I would have managed without you there. I owe you.”

“It was never about that,” Arthur replies automatically, then, because his brain and mouth aren't his anymore: "Dom, Mal was right."

Cobb stiffens up entirely, and whatever gentle contentment that was in his presence evaporates. “She was wrong,” he says, and Arthur- or Cobb? swallows and wishes she had been.

“Have- have you thought,” Arthur interjects when it looks like Cobb is getting angry. “Dom, listen to me. Please. Try and remember,” Arthur has to swallow the bitterness in his throat, “when we first met.”

“At the corps-” Dom shoots back angrily, but is unable to progress further. The color in his face is sickly pale, with high dashes of red on his cheeks. Arthur watches Dom’s throat work, his jaw open and close, the dawning of confusion, denial, horror in the space of moments.

“We didn’t meet,” Arthur says quietly, “until I walked into your kitchen, the night Mal killed herself.”

Dom stares at him with a strangely bleak expression, and Arthur quietly despairs, because if the shade of Mal was to provoke Dom, Arthur was created to stabilize him.

“So, you’re saying what, that we’re still dreaming? All of us?” Cobb rasps hoarsely, all voice gone.

With a short shake of his head, Arthur explains, “No, Dom. You’re the only one dreaming. I’m a,” Arthur pauses, lets the words twist around in his mouth, “projection of your subconscious.”

“No,” Cobb denies, but Arthur seizes his wrist and forces him to meet his eyes.

“Think, Cobb! We never met any earlier than that night, but you knew who I was. And Eames too. We never ran into bad luck; we got out of every impossible situation, that in reality, would have us strung up and dead before the end of the day. And,” Arthur’s mouth twists in bitter amusement, “have you realized that we can never focus on text, we just know what it says?” He taps his brain. “Reading ability is on the wrong side of the brain.”

A strangled intake of breath breaks the silence and Cobb’s hand convulses on the tabletop. Arthur watches helplessly, quietly grieving his own existence. He thinks- Cobb thinks- this will be the hardest part of his short, imaginative life.

“Dom,” he says quietly, and lays his gun out on the table. Cobb’s eyes go wide as he looks up, then at Arthur. “This is how it ends.”

“I can’t,” Cobb replies frantically, eyes darting away. “James and Philippa- no, I can’t take that risk, Arthur! Are you crazy?”

“You’re the one talking to yourself, after building an elaborate dream of reality,” Arthur points out, amused and sad.

“I can’t do this,” Cobb pleads, shaking his head and grabbing Arthur’s hand. “I don’t care if this is a dream, I’m happy, Arthur! I’m happy.”

“Your real children are waiting for you,” Arthur tells him, laces their fingers together and leans in. “ _Mal_ is waiting for you.”

But Cobb is pulling his hands loose and backing from the table.

“Don’t do this, Arthur, I know you,” he breathes shakily, and Arthur picks up the gun, flicks the safety off.

“I do, too,” he says with a bitter smile. He wonders that he’s only a projection, because these feelings of heartbreak are too complicated to articulate, genuine or not.

“Arthur,” Cobb pleads, “If you do this, we’ll never meet again.”

And Arthur laughs and raises the gun. “We’re the same person, Dom,” he says as light-heartedly as he could. “This is why you created me, so that I’d do this for you. Don’t worry,” he suggests with a faintly ironic twist, “It’s all in your head.”

He pulls the trigger.

Everything goes dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Orig. written 9/19/2010  
> Thanks to [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=strokeof_genie)[**strokeof_genie**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=strokeof_genie) and [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=myndii)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=myndii)**myndii** for feedback and love!  
>  Title from 'Sun Also Rises' - Ben Arthur & Rachael Yamagata
> 
> -Mostly I was thinking about Cobb and why he is the only ones with complete first and last name.  
> -the other half can be attributed to insomnia and delirium.  
> -disturbingly, approximately 33.3% of my Inception stories now end with Arthur shooting Cobb in the face. Perhaps time to try something else; crossbow? plastic sheeting? Poe-style pendulum? Arthur with a mace should be pretty rocking.
> 
> I'm not even sure how to warn for this one without spoiling all the things. Or is a warning even necessary?


End file.
